Relief Convoy Rolls Into New Orleans Coach USA Lending Its Support to America’S Emergency Services
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NZ wraps Fishy flavour Brave drivers Thousands up safety to marketing keep London flock to the message campaign moving fairways The newspaper of Stagecoach Group Issue 60 Autumn 2005 Relief convoy rolls into New Orleans Coach USA lending its support to America’s emergency services. Coach USA helps mass evacuation after Hurricane Katrina by Steven Stewart away from the worst-affected areas. s the people of New “We had a tremendous response AOrleans reeled under from our employees at Coach USA, the devastation caused and our support team worked closely by Hurricane Katrina, Pennsylvania, New York and West with the Federal Government and Stagecoach rolled up its Virginia – helped evacuate some of the offered them every assistance they thousands of people made homeless could.” sleeves to help with the by the disaster. The US Federal Government asked unprecedented relief effort Coach USA employees also donated for assistance from coach and school in the stricken Gulf Coast. bottled water, food items and toiletries, bus operators as thousands of square On hearing the plight of thousands which were loaded onto the vehicles. miles of Louisiana and Mississippi of residents stranded without food or The aid was delivered to the American remained under water. water, many unable to flee the city Red Cross to be distributed to those in The Coach USA team also assisted before the hurricane swept ashore, the need. the Federal Emergency Management company’s Coach USA division dis- Brian Souter, Stagecoach Group Agency in the New Orleans area in the patched a convoy of 12 coaches and 24 Chief Executive, said: “Hurricane immediate aftermath of the hurricane. drivers to the bruised and battered Katrina caused devastation and human The exhausted evacuees from New ‘Jewel of the South’. suffering on a massive scale and one of Orleans were eventually driven to The support team – from operations the immediate priorities was ensuring safety in various designated relief areas in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, people were transported to safety throughout Texas. The sight of the davastated Gulf Coast that met the Coach USA teams. Stagecoach has teamed up with make our collective operations more Singapore-based transport group efficient, putting us in an excellent ComfortDelGro to create a new inter-city United bid challenges the train position to compete with the train and coach venture to compete with rail attract more people away from their cars services in Scotland. largest land transport company, owns viable alternative to the train. Stagecoach Group Chief Executive and onto our inter-city services.” The venture will operate the Scottish the remaining 65%. Bus services between Edinburgh and Brian Souter said: “Megabus.com and ComfortDelGro Managing Director services of Stagecoach’s megabus.com Tom Wileman, Managing Director of Glasgow will be increased to every 15 Scottish Citylink are two powerful and Group CEO Kua Hong Pak said the and Motorvator, and ComfortDelGro’s Stagecoach Scotland, is overseeing the minutes daily to match the train service brands in Scotland that have established firm was pleased to be entering into the Scottish Citylink, offering customers new operation. on First ScotRail’s flagship line and a loyal base of customers in different agreement with Stagecoach. more frequent services, faster journey The new business will be the leading hourly services will run on most other inter-city travel markets. This new joint He added: “By working together and times and improved quality on the road. provider of express coach services in routes. venture will allow us to develop the leveraging on our two strong brands we Under the deal, Stagecoach owns Scotland, with expected annual revenues The coach journey time between quality of our products and offer an even will be able to operate more efficiently, 35% of the share capital and is responsi- of around £18 million. It will create a Inverness and Edinburgh will also be cut better range of excellent value travel improve the quality of our services and ble for operational management. stronger business to help make coach to three and a half hours, less than the options for our customers. focus our efforts on jointly growing our ComfortDelGro, the world’s second travel between key population centres a time it takes by train. “We believe the new venture will business.” Students urged to Mega-drive to revive think pink by Adam Rideout the heart of London Students at the University of Warwick are enjoying brighter days 100,000 free seats on offer through megabus.com thanks to the introduction of a dozen pink and purple double- decker buses by Stagecoach in fforts to entice tourists by Steven Stewart attractions the city has to offer.” More than 2.6 million passengers Warwickshire. Eback into London in the The 100,000 free seats are available have used the service since the first The usual livery was deemed wake of the terrorist for Monday to Thursday journeys to trial route was launched in August unsuitable for the university popu- doubt that discretionary leisure travel and from London – excluding internal 2003 and a national network went live lation so Warwickshire’s Marketing attacks of July 7 have been to London was affected in the and cross-border services to and from in March 2004. Manager Adam Rideout devised boosted by megabus.com. immediate aftermath of the locations in Scotland – until With fares starting as low as £1, something he believed they could The UK’s market-leading low-cost bombings. December 12. Customers taking up megabus.com runs a network of inter- identify with more. inter-city coach service offered “The good news is that, over the the free seats offer pay only the city services covering more than 30 Adam explained: “Pink is an 100,000 free seats into the capital past few weeks, there is evidence that standard 50p booking fee locations across the UK. outrageous colour for a big bus, after media reports suggested that the customer confidence is growing and Passenger numbers for This summer it introduced a £6.5 but we wanted an identity that the bombings had affected the level of tourists are starting to return to the megabus.com, which celebrated its million fleet of new state-of-the-art students could feel is their own. leisure trips to the city. capital. We hope our offer of 100,000 second anniversary this summer, have double-decker coaches with air-con- We primarily run a service to and Brian Souter, Chief Executive of free seats will give people a massive risen by nearly 25% in the last six ditioning, toilets and more comfort- from the University of Warwick Stagecoach Group, said: “There is no incentive to come and see the great months. able seats. especially for them. As such, it follows that we want them to feel at home on our buses and we didn’t think the normal Stagecoach The Swinging Sixties may be a livery was for them.” Flower power puts ‘petal’ to the metal distant memory, but the spirit of the The university service, which decade lives on in Chesterfield usually runs every 12 minutes, has through an exciting flower-power also been re-named Unibus. It revival. replaces the X12 route number Passengers in the town have had with U1, which is more user their journeys brightened up by friendly for students travelling Stagecoach’s new floral double- between Sydenham and decker bus. Designed by local art Leamington and the university. students, the distinctive vehicle was Radios have also been intro- the firm’s contribution to the East duced on the buses, which Midlands in Bloom competition. students can catch up to 2.20am on Many local companies offered Fridays and Saturdays. their support, but Stagecoach’s Though mainly used by effort, which proves you can say it students, the buses – which link with flowers, has been by far the Sydenham, Leamington, most eye-catching. Kenilworth and Warwick – are also Competition judges toured the available for the general public. region in the bus to inspect the quality of local flower displays and were highly impressed with the Back to vehicle. And everyone was delighted when the Derbyshire town clinched the silver runner-up the future medal in the “small city” category, despite never having entered Cwmffrwdoer Primary School before. recently welcomed employees from Stagecoach South Wales, Derbyshire’s ‘blooming’ fantastic bus. who gave the children an insight into travel both past and present. Contacts Although it was a wet and windy day, the children had a The Editor, On Stage, Stagecoach Group, Stagecoach South West Mark Whittle 01392 889747 chance to explore a 1964 AEC 10 Dunkeld Road, Perth PH1 5TW. National Transport Tokens Sajda Khan 01254 680180 Double Decker complete with Tel: +44 (0)1738 442111, Fax: +44 (0)1738 580407 its own ‘clippy’ and a 2005 www.stagecoachgroup.com UK Rail Neoplan megabus. If you have a story for On Stage, please get in touch South West Trains Lisa Davies 0207 620 5892 Our picture shows Depot with your local contact below: Island Line Stephen Wade 01983 812591 Inspector Kelvin Harnett, Driver Stagecoach Supertram Julia Shaw 0114 2759888 Tal Jenkins, Mayor of Torfaen Stagecoach Group Steven Stewart 01738 642040 Lyn Urwin and Conductress Val UK Bus Overseas Cruten. Stagecoach East Scotland Lisa Henry 01383 516454 North America Stagecoach West Scotland Allan Henry 01292 613515 North East Roger Bowker 001 201 225 7581 Stagecoach North East Kate Williams 0191 567 5251 North Central Dale Moser 001 847 390 5800 Stagecoach North West Colin Nicholson 01772 255752 Coach Canada Jim Devlin 001 705 748 1170 Stagecoach Manchester Karen Coventry 0161 276 2727 Stagecoach East Midlands Phil Cartwright 01246 222018 New Zealand Dennis Elliot 00 649 309 3500 Stagecoach in Oxfordshire Chris Child 01865 405511 On Stage is published four times a year.